Kia ora Ponsonby… It has been so long since we have seen you all. We really miss you and look forward to opening the library doors safely to you soon.
Regardless of alert levels and Covid-19 restrictions the year marches on. November means it might be time to start pondering the holiday season.
Through Libby (one of our eBook platforms) you can access a range of Christmas books. For those of us who have been going a little stir crazy at home these last few months, maybe this is the year we commit to handmade Christmas gifts. Thankfully, through our online resources there’s a range of Christmas crafting ebooks for both adults and children to help ensure a handmade holiday is spectacular.
Our online collection can also assist with what my family consider the best part of Christmas - the food. There are baking eBooks crammed with so many sweet treats I think I got a cavity just looking at them. Additionally, to help you with your gifting and menu planning, you can access a selection of eMagazines through Libby and Pressreader. On Pressreader you will find Cuisine, the magazine which has been my Christmas food guide for longer than I care to remember. In fact, still on my cookbook shelf at home is a Christmas issue of Cuisine that is now more than 20 years old; but my family say it still has some of their favourite recipes ever.
For those of you struggling to find enthusiasm for the holiday season, Beamafilm has you sorted, with a selection of cringeworthy Mills and Boon style Christmas films that’ll either have you humming carols or running to the kitchen to get away from your screen. If all that fails, then Beamafilm also has the essential Classic Christmas film (no, not Die Hard) Frank Capra’s, It’s a Wonderful Life. If you’ve never seen it, you are missing out. Did you know that as well as Beamafilm we also have streaming films available through Overdrive? That is where you can find the film below, reviewed by David, our resident classic film expert.
Overdrive Video Classic: The Lady Vanishes (1938)
A rambunctious musicologist (Michael Redgrave) and a plucky young socialite (Margaret Lockwood) join forces to track down a woman who has mysteriously disappeared on board a train somewhere in central Europe. In the course of things, they stumble onto a sinister plot of international scope. This parable about willful blindness to the Nazi threat leaves little doubt that Director Alfred Hitchcock knew perfectly well what Hitler had in store for the world.
The blinkeredness of the English in particular, and their preoccupation with weightier matters, (“Cricket, Sir, Cricket!”), are here mercilessly skewered.
Notwithstanding the serious subtext therefore, and despite production values that do not quite match those of Hitchcock’s later and better-funded efforts in Hollywood, this film remains one of the director’s most entertaining.
(Chloё, Community Library Manager)
Leys Institute Little Library, 14 Jervois Road, T: 09 377 0209, www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz
Published 5 November 2021